12 Days Best of Rwanda Gorilla Trekking Adventure Safari

Today, after your relaxed morning breakfast at your hotel, you will be picked by your safari guide and leave for Akagera national park, the journey to Akagera national park takes about 2.3 hours depending on the stopovers along the way, with the beautiful unwinding landscape en route to the park, feel free to ask the guide for stopovers to capture some photos. On arrival at the park, we shall register at the park offices and later proceed to our accommodation with a short game drive and check in for lunch. We order lunch and after lunch, you opt to relax at your lodge, or opt to head for brief game drive for game viewing. You will later return in the evening for relaxation. In the evening, you will go for a night game drive, to explore the park and try to sight some nocturnal, search for some wildlife for roughly 2 – 3 hours. Later return to the lodge for dinner and evening stay.

Accommodation: Mantis Akagera Game Lodge (Mid – range)

Meal plan: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

After an early morning breakfast at 6:00 am and leave for an early morning game drive in Akagera national park to catch up with late hunters and early risers. We will be searching for the big mammals like Elephants, Giraffes, Buffaloes, several Antelope species, and recently the re-introduced Lions and Rhinos. The park is a varied habitat for wildlife and a number of bird species with over 500 bird species in the park making it a birding paradise. You will later return to the lodge for lunch. After lunch, we head for a brief game drive in the park and later proceed for a sunset boat trip on Lake Ihema watch Hippos and crocodiles in the water or by the shores and meet the buffaloes and elephants wallowing by the water banks. Later return to the lodge for dinner and evening stay.

Accommodation: Mantis Akagera Game Lodge (Mid – range)

Meal plan: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

After an early morning breakfast at 6:00 am and leave for an early morning game drive in Akagera national park to catch up with late hunters and early risers. We will be searching for the big mammals like Elephants, Giraffes, Buffaloes, several Antelope species, and recently the re-introduced Lions and Rhinos. The park is a varied habitat for wildlife and a number of bird species with over 500 bird species in the park making it a birding paradise. You will have a picnic lunch. After lunch, proceed with your game drive for more search of abundant wildlife within this great park in the northern part of the park. Later drive back to Kigali, to your booked hotel for dinner and evening stay at the lodge.

Accommodation: Hotel des Mille Collines (Mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Early morning enjoy your buffer breakfast and checkout of the hotel and drive heading to the western province, on your way visit the Royal Palace Museum and Ethnographic Museum in Southern Province, this will give you a great history of traditional ways of living among Rwandans and their past way of leadership of Kingship with an en route lunch. You will reach in the afternoon at Nyungwe national park and spend the afternoon at your leisure.

Accommodation: Nyungwe Top View Lodge (Mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Today’s agenda includes chimpanzee trekking deep in the forest and canopy walk  After your early morning breakfast, you will drive to the park reception for the early morning briefing before heading to the forest in search of the chimpanzee. During the briefing, grouping of the trekker’s is done, and you will be put into a group of 8 members per group, depending on the number of trekkers, you may be less. Make your way to Cyamudongo in the dark with a local park ranger who knows the forest’s deepest secrets. Follow him to the home of the chimps. Watch the animals wake, stretch, and start their day in the forest. Snap your photos while you can. Once they’re on the move, catching up to them among the tall trees and thick brush is a feat of athletic prowess. This once in a lifetime experience deserves your full attention: Remember the feeling of the mud beneath your hiking boots, the pitch of the primate calls echoing through the trees and the moment you locked eyes with a chimp in one of the few places in the world where you still can. These cousins to humans can be found and tracked in Nyungwe National Park. A beautiful guided hike through the forest will lead you to these fascinating creatures where you can watch them play and interact up close. Chimpanzee tracking can be done year-round in Nyungwe, rain or shine, and while it is never guaranteed that you will see them, sightings are very common and guides are skillful in tracking them. The experience differs from gorilla tracking as the chimps move through the canopy, so the sightings are a bit more sporadic and exciting, but worthwhile nonetheless. Observe them playing, wild and free, hooting and dashing through the trees. You will later return back to your lodge for lunch. In the afternoon, you should be in the green trees of Nyungwe National Park – home to one of the oldest rainforests on the continent. With 374.5 square miles to explore you won’t be able to do it all today, but the easy stroll out to the Canopy Walkway from the Uwinka reception center offers a chance to marvel at the views from 230 feet above the rainforest floor. Listen for the sounds of 13 species of primates and more than 300 types of birds. Sleep tonight knowing you’ll meet some of the noisemakers in the days ahead. Experience the rainforest from a dazzling new perspective on the famous Canopy Walkway.

Accommodation: Nyungwe Top View Lodge (Mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

After your relaxed breakfast, meet with your guide and transfer to Karongi, reach and relax at your lodge, later lunch be served. In the afternoon, you will head for a 2 hour’s boat ride on Lake Kivu, to explore this great Lake patched with a number of beautiful islands, watch the fishermen, and later return for dinner and overnight stay.

Accommodation: Cormoran Lodge Kibuye (Mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

The adventure continues by an overland drive from Lake Kivu to Volcanoes National Park, by way of the beautiful shores of Lake Kivu. This beautiful Kivu belt road, rewards you, with unwinding countryside experience, of the rolling hills, and great view of the beautiful Lake Kivu. On route to Musanze, wave to the school kids making their way with books in hand, and the ladies balancing woven baskets on their heads. You will have lunch en route in Musanze, and proceed to visit Ellen DeGeneres campus of Dian Fossey institute, learn more about the gorilla conservation move, later proceed to your booked hotel for dinner and overnight stay.

Accommodation: Mount Gorilla View Lodge (Mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Enjoy your buffer breakfast at the lodge by 0630 hours, and later jump on to your jeep and drive to the park headquarters’ in Kinigi for briefing by 0700 hrs: Registration is a simple process where the park staff determines which group of gorillas you will visit. The park staff discusses your fitness level and advises you of the gorilla trekking times and conditions to the various groups based upon their location in the park the previous evening. There are a total of 96 gorilla permits available each day with a maximum of eight trekkers visiting any one group. Your guide would have asked you, about your trekking fitness, and interest, so as to choose a gorilla group that matches your interest to join for the day. Once the trekkers are put into groups, each group’s Lead Guide briefs the trekkers of the trekking procedures as well as the “do’s and don’ts” while in the presence of gorillas. After the briefing, trekkers return to their respective vehicles for the drive up the mountain to the starting point. Trekking can take from two to six or more hours if the gorillas move before the park rangers locate them the next morning. The guides stop frequently to allow trekkers a chance to rest and take photos along the way.  Our exhilarating trek in the footsteps of the rare and critically endangered Mountain Gorillas, the largest living primate on earth, starts in the cultivated foothills of the Volcanoes National Park with stirring views in all directions. Upon entering the park, with paths carved by the mountains' elusive buffalo and elephant, trekkers will be immersed in the mysterious intimacy of the rainforest, alive with colourful bird calls, butterflies and more. Through gaps in the canopy, the magnificent Virunga peaks, among the highest in Africa yet easily accessible, are glimpsed, beckoning an ascent. Weaving through overhanging vines, moss-covered hagenia and giant lobelias that thrive in the tropical climate, our experienced trackers, who spend their entire lives in or close to this forest, bring you up close with the gorilla family. Upon sighting the gorillas, you will stay with them for a magical hour as they go about their daily life, feeding, playing, resting; raising their young. Coming face to face with a giant silverback is one of the greatest wildlife experiences on earth. You will later return back to your lodge, catch up with lunch, and in the afternoon, and get ready for a village foot safari, to explore the indigenous local life with a taste of the traditional performance at Iby Iwacu cultural center. Dinner and overnight at the hotel.

Accommodation: Mount Gorilla View Lodge (Mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

This morning, head for a Golden monkeys trekking experience that takes place in Volcanoes national park at 7:00 am. The golden monkey trekking, takes the same procedure as the gorilla trekking, however less, strenuous compared to gorilla trekking. These rare species are also listed as endangered – and Volcanoes national park currently has two habituated golden monkeys’ troops that are available for visiting by tourists in the park, both of which make about 50 members.   Golden monkeys in Rwanda live in the bamboo vegetation towards the base of the volcanoes and habituation has helped them to overcome their initial shyness to accept their daily visit by researchers and tourists.  Trekking golden monkeys and gorillas is a similar experience – in a small group of no more than eight people, and you can spend one hour with the monkeys once you find them. The endangered species are very active creatures, and jump from tree to tree which is really interesting and a little difficult to photograph! Afterwards, we will enjoy lunch at a local restaurant before driving to Kigali. Take a Kigali City Tour which includes visits to old Kigali and craft markets, the Kigali Genocide Memorial at Gisozi to learn about Rwanda’s history, the Genocide against the Tutsi as well as other mass atrocities around the world. Exploring further, it is inspiring to see how far the country has come in 29 years. The recovery has been referred to as a true testament to humankind’s resilience. We stop at a craft center where you can haggle for unique Rwandan crafts and curios, and if time permits, we visit the Kandt House Natural History Museum, which covers both natural ecosystems in Rwanda and the intertwined Rwandan and German colonial history. We may also have time to tour Old Kigali where the colonial buildings now form the heart of Rwanda’s small businesses. This evening, enjoy dinner at Hotel des Mille Collines - one of Kigali's award-winning restaurants that offer modern African cuisine.

Accommodation: Hotel des Mille Collines (mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

After getting done with your relaxed morning breakfast, you will drive to the south, to visit Nyamata and Ntarama, genocide memorial ground, return and have lunch, before we decide to head to the local markets, and art and craft markets for shopping and later dinner and overnight stay.

Accommodation: Hotel des Mille Collines (mid – range)

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Today, our tour comes to an end, and depending on your flight time, we may have more to see before we fly out. After getting done with your relaxed morning breakfast, depending on your flight time, you will be transferred to the airport to catch up with your onward flight.

Meals: Breakfast,